- A solo Bitcoin miner earned a $200,000 block reward after solving block 938,092 using a rented setup that cost only $75.
- The miner utilised CKPool and rented 1 petahash per second of computing power, a “lottery-style” win that occurs roughly every 17 days for solo miners.
- The success highlights a rare profit for small-scale miners while industrial operators face pressure from falling prices and high production costs.
A solo Bitcoin miner recently earned the full 3.125 BTC block reward, worth about US$200K (AU$282K), after independently validating a Bitcoin block using a small-scale setup and rented computing power.
The miner solved block 938092 at about 8:04 a.m. UTC on Tuesday, according to Mempool.space. Bitcoin mining firm Braiins said the miner used CKPool, which allows individuals to mine solo while using a pool server to distribute work and broadcast valid blocks.
Braiins said the miner rented roughly 1 petahash per second of on-demand hashrate, spending about 119,000 satoshis, around 75 dollars at the time, plus a small solo-mining fee.
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Solo Miners
Winning block rewards when you’re a solo Bitcoin miner is tremendously difficult, but not impossible.
For example, on-demand hashrate lets miners rent computing power through cloud services instead of buying and running hardware, making it possible to attempt mining with a low upfront cost.
Winning a full block as a solo miner remains rare because the odds are heavily skewed toward large industrial operators, but occasional “lottery” wins still occur.
Data tracked by solo mining aggregator Bennet shows 21 solo miners found blocks over the past year, earning a combined 66 BTC worth about US$4.1 million (AU$6.27 million) at current prices. Bennet’s data suggests solo blocks were found about every 17.2 days on average, and the past year’s total was about 17% higher than the prior period.
Bitcoin Mining Gets Harder for Institutions
The win comes as the broader mining sector faces renewed financial strain after Bitcoin’s latest drawdown. Prices are roughly 50% below October highs and have recently traded below US$63,000 (AU$96,390), raising concerns about profitability relative to production costs.
A Checkonchain chart has placed Bitcoin’s “difficulty regression” price around US$86,000 (AU$128K), well above spot levels, which some market participants interpret as a sign miners are operating below breakeven.
CryptoQuant analyst Julio Moreno disputed that reading, saying the regression metric is an indirect proxy that does not include real-world variables such as electricity rates, hardware efficiency or labour. He said more practical cost estimates tend to fall between US$70,000 (AU$107,100) and US$80,000 (AU$122,400), still implying pressure on miners at current prices.
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